Feb 17, 2006
By Annie Deakin
Six of the Best
For someone who is only 16 years old, Gabriella Calthorpe is surprisingly savvy about fashion. She's wearing grey Superfine jeans and clutching a black Chloe Paddington. 'Ghost and Chloe are my top two designers this season.' She is already the face of Pringle and Topshop and is, this week, striding down the catwalk for her second London Fashion Week. 'Luckily, it's half term this time so my school (St Swithun's in Winchester) won't notice I'm not in lessons.' Bumpy, as her friends call her (odd for a girl with a 24in waist), was recommended to her agency Premier by Naomi Campbell.
Supermodel and protegee met at a dinner party hosted by Debonaire von Bismark and Isabella Blow. She has since been shot for Italian, Russian and Greek Vogue, Wonderland, Another Magazine and the cover of Tank, as well as the Pringle and Topshop campaigns. But you may well ask why the teenager, then barely 15 years old and more interested in her art classes, was mixing with fashion hot shots.
Born into a sprawling family of impeccable lineage, Gabriella was fast-tracked for the high life. She is one of eight children but shies away from her family's tongue-twisting name, Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe. 'It's too much of a mouthful'.
Her racing driver grandfather was the late Earl Howe, her father Joe is a Birmingham property heir and mother Vanessa, previously married to Sir David St Vincent Llewellyn, was a top model. 'It's such a shame because Mum lost her portfolio in a taxi years ago so I haven't seen any of her work.' Her half-sister, actress Isabella, 26, was (falsely) rumoured to be Prince William's girlfriend before the days of Kate Middleton, and her half-brother, fashion PR Jacobi, 23, parades the London scene.
'I'm tamer than Jacobi but I do like to party.' With contacts like those, it was only a matter of time before Gabriella caught someone's eye. 'I'm 5ft 10in and hate towering over my friends, so I stick to ballet pumps. Family friend and fashion director of Tatler Isabella Blow, who first shot her aged 14, says, 'Gabriella is incredibly striking. She's got a big future.'
Half-siblings Pandora, 31, Georgiana, 26, Olivia, 24, and Arabella, 22, and real sister Octavia, 14, are supportive. 'Dad's also really good about it. We have a deal: if I'm behind at school or my grades fall, then I can't do the shoots.' Aspiring model she may be, but art school in London is very much an option. 'I love painting but selling my works embarrasses me. Maybe I'll be a designer.' Be it Camberwell or the catwalk, Gabriella is staying in fashion.